Transendence
by a knight who says NEEP
Summary: A younger Spock confronts his dual heritage and tells Sarek his decision to leave Vulcan. Rating for a smidgen of actionviolence.


- Transcendence. -

Commemorating an event which one cannot remember is a singularly illogical practice. Hence, birthdays usually passed uncommented on Vulcan. Amanda had found, however, that celebrating with a few small gifts and perhaps a piece of cake was one tradition she had not been able to abandon when she left her old life, at least as far as herself and her son were concerned. Sarek would let it pass with nothing more than the obligatory arced eyebrow – more, she suspected, to raise a smile from her than from any serious objection. Her attempts to include Sybok had met with firmer disapproval:

"His control is already underdeveloped for a full-blooded Vulcan of his age. You are encouraging him, my wife, to think he can have what he cannot."

"They're still _young,"_ Amanda had protested, deliberately refusing to differentiate between Sarek's first-born and her own, half-human offspring: "There's plenty of time for their training." But Sybok, of course, had refused to be trained: and now he was gone, years ago.

Since his eldest son's refusal to espouse the Way of Surak, Sarek had been firmer in Spock's training. Vulcan parents did not express disappointment in their children verbally: that would be in very poor taste. '_Almost as poor_,' Amanda reflected with a tiny twinge of regret, '_as outward displays of affection. But_ Kai'idith_!"_

Softly she walked down the wooden-floored corridor, morning sun gleaming in hard round the ages of curtains. The light was already red. She paused by a doorframe and knocked softly.

"Spock…?"

"Come in."

Her half-human son was sitting pensively in his window-sit, watching the sun rise over the Shikahr in the distance. He turned to offer her that half-smile which was her special privilege, light glancing down his angular profile. She smiled fully but made no move to enter his personal space, trying to pour the embrace she wanted to give him through her expression.

"Happy Birthday."

"Thank you."

"I brought your present."

The past three or four years, Spock had made a show of disapproval at the emotional gesture, but it was a poor one, and Amanda could feel his pleasure as she passed him the wrapped wooden box. The Vulcans liked to think they were the only mind-readers in this household, but a mother knew better.

"This would be a special birthday, you know," she said: "If we were on earth."

He looked up from meticulously unwrapping the gift, taking care not to rip the paper. "Yes – I would be eighteen."

"An adult."

"it will be many more years before I am recognized as an adult on Vulcan. However the significance of his date has not escaped me. Was there some tradition or ritual you wished me to engage in, used on Earth perhaps to mark…?"

"We-ell," Amanda teased him, "Eighteenth birthdays on earth usually mean wild parties, loud music and the consumption of large amounts of alcohol…" she burst out laughing at his expression of barely concealed horror. "Think of it as a coming-of-age rite: an endurance, test, like the crossing of Vulcan's Forge."

"I should prefer to undertake the crossing, without question."

"Open your gift, sweetheart."

Spock finished unwrapping the present. Inside the box was a silver disc: a circle, intersected by an isosceles triangle. "The symbol of IDIC. I thank you."

"You'll need it, I think. You're going to meet all kinds of people, out there…some of them…."

"Some of them will present challenges. Their cultures may be very different from either of ours. They may have practices I find offensive – even morally wrong. But I will accept them and try to understand them, because my desire is to learn whatever I can learn of the Universe."

Amanda closed her eyes, suddenly having to swallow past a lump in her throat. "You really are ready to go, aren't you?"

"Yes, mother."

"You sound so grown-up."

He raised an eyebrow in a manner so similar to Sarek she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I have already reminded you that Vulcan will not recognize me as a legal adult for another six-point-"

"I know, I know." She permitted herself one squeeze of his hand, and he didn't pull away. "When will you tell him?"

Spock looked down at the disc to avoid her eyes, a mannerism Amanda recognized as one of her own father's. He extracted his hand and ran long fingers over the disc shiny surface, taking several breaths before replying.

"I have no further reason to wait. Sarek is taking me to _Pi'dukal-Suk-dauk_this afternoon, for practice in sustaining the sixth level of meditation. I had thought that after our session…."

"Why not before? If you don't tell him before you might not be able to concentrate."

He slid her a very human look from slanted black Vulcan eyes.

"I know," she admitted: "It's _after_ I'm worried about too."

The crystalline caves at _Pi'dukal-Suk-dauk_provided relief from the desert heat at all seasons of the year. Passages jackknifed down steeply from the deceptively narrow mouth, small waterfalls gurgled and muttered from underground wells. The caves branched naturally into several small nooks, shadowed and shielded from disturbance, cool and dark. The retreat had been used for meditation since the days of Surak. A small red gem marked the third conclave, where legend reported the Teacher himself had studied and meditated before beginning his ministry, quenching the fire of desert and sun, drinking in the cool calm logic of implacable stone.

Spock was at once there and not-there. Part of him apprehended the chill, the hard slick feel of stone, part of him heard his father's voice intone the assisting chants. Part of him was elsewhere entirely, distant and transcendental:

'_This is the peace you could have,' _said his Vulcan-mind: '_This control, this dignity…this _power._' _ Sarek's mind – Surak's thought - was nourished by this distance. '_This coldness,'_ his Human-mind countered with the intonation of Amanda's voice, '_This – bareness.' _

"_Kroykah." _The command from Sarek brought him out of the trance. He ascended quickly through the lighter levels of meditation – just four above him. He hadn't achieved the sixth. A great deal of time must have passed, he thought, blinking, for Sarek to accept such dissatisfaction.

"_Sa-fu, _are you well?"

"Yes, _Sa-mekh_." Spock was surprised how thirsty he was – was painful. His muscles were tense – he tried to engaged his time-sense and found it disturbingly vague. Sarek moved to pour two cups of water from the pitcher in the corner and brought one to his son. Spock bowed his head in thanks.

"Your concentration is deficient today."

"I ask forgiveness." He savoured the taste of water as only a desert-dweller can.

"It is granted." Sarek sounded, if anything, puzzled: "If there is something troubling you,…., it would be well to speak of it and be aided: _within the family, all is silence_."

'_Indeed,'_ Spock thought ironically: if Sarek knew what had transpired in silence these past three moons…well, he was about to find out.

"There – something that I need to tell you, …. But -is the day-heat passed? Would it be acceptable to return to the surface?"

Somehow he needed space for this pronouncement.

"Surface temperatures should have fallen to a tolerable level," said Sarek, raising an eyebrow at his son's lack of time-sense. They ascended the passageways together and emerged into fierce telling light. The desert's contrast of shade and light was like crossing a physical barrier.

"Well?" Sarek turned to his second born, his back to the caves and the skyline. "What is this decision you have come to?"

"It concerns my future – it – concerns – the Science Academy."

"Prevarication is not logical, Spock. Say what is in your mind."

'_Very well._' Spock squared his shoulders and met Sarek's eyes – their heights matched, and the shadowed symmetry of their profiles might have struck a Vulcan onlooker as an illustration of balance. A human might simply have noted, 'like father, like son.' "I have decided not to attend the Vulcan Science Academy."

Sarek's expression was an exemplum of control.

"I have decided, instead, that I wish to pursue my career as a physicist in a more practical manner. I have, have applied to Starfleet Academy and I have been accepted."

One eyebrow rose.

"Star-fleet," said Sarek experimentally, as though he'd never so much as heard the term before.

"Yes."

"Starfleet. Is a military organization."

"Saih, defence is only one of its capacities." Spock found that whe was speaking very quickly now, and that he was getting too hot. Perhaps coming out on the surface hadn't been such a good idea after all. "It's primary function is exploration and diplomacy – I will remain a scientist, Saih, I have no intention of becoming a soldier. Starfleet is devoted to the preservation of peace, like all Federation branches…you know this, Saih. Have you not- good relations – with the Chief of Starfleet Command?"

"The Chief of Starfleet Command," said Sarek slowly and carefully. "Is a human. His work is suited to him – it is logical. You are not a human, Spock."

"No. But I am committed to the principles of IDIC-"

"So you believe that humans are? Such illogic is unworthy of you."

"-and surely one purpose of the _United_ Federation is to promote interspecies relations, as you have championed your whole life,_ Sa-mekh_, as you have-"

He stopped, and his gaze darted to a point above his father's shoulder. Something had moved – some shadow that was not merely the wing of a passing …., but which was….? In the desert one was always alert. Sarek tensed too with awareness of the sudden menace, but then the _le-matya_ was upon them, launching itself in incongruous, powerful silence down from the ledges of rock. Sarek moved instinctively to shield his son, the _le-matya_ landed soundlessly and slashed out with four blade-like claws. Spock ducked under the beast's outstretched leg and came up behind it's shoulder – adjusting his fingers to accommodate the feline's musculature, he nerve-pinched perfectly behind the shoulder-blade, and the beast crumpled.

Sarek was breathing slightly raggedly, leaning against a rock. Controlling his fear, Spock went to his father, assessed a green-bleeding gash to his ribs that had torn through both robe and flesh.

"I will contact the Medcenter," he said quietly, taking out his communicator.

"Unnecessary." Sarek closed his eyes for a moment and summoned the Disciplines, directing his blood away from the wound and stemming the green flow. "It is not serious. We carry disinfectants and gauze in the first-aid kit in the flitter." He straightened and strode back towards the flitter in question, dignity perfect, leaving Spock with a mingled sense of frustration and awe. He followed his father in silence and did not presume to attempt help in treating the wound. When Sarek had finished he looked up and nodded once to his son.

"I thank you, Spock. You acted as a Vulcan."

Spock bowed his head in acknowledgement.

"Do you know," said Sarek slowly and carefully, "How humans in Starfleet deal with such dangerous adversaries?"

"No," said Spock honestly.

"They kill them."

Spock blanched.

"If you go," said Sarek, " – and I may not stop you, for I am aware they will accept you as an adult, even grant you a Terran passport – if you go you will be asked to kill. Ordered. It does not matter whether you call yourself scientist or soldier. You will be ordered to kill, and maybe, you will do so." His black eyes held a gleam of challenge. Spock looked out at the shape of the fallen _le-matya_ – beautiful, powerful. Its chest rose and fell in the even rhythms of sleeps. He could not comprehend what it would be to murder such a creature. He looked down at his hands.

Then he thought of stars, infinite, glorious, and of the multitude of worlds, phenomena and secrets of the night sky yet to be explored.

"I will go," he told his father. "But I will not take life. If Starfleet wishes, as they say, to increase the diversity of races that serve in the Fleet, they must understand that some will not – cannot -…."

"You have a strong will, Spock," said Sarek, beginning to engage the controls for takeoff. "Who knows. Perhaps you will succeed." Control-of-emotion was a double edged sword, Spock thought bitterly: Sarek had control enough to infuse the most ordinary words with acceptance, with – love – or to freeze them into cutting icicles, like now.

"I will not attend the Vulcan Science Academy," Spock repeated, "And I will not kill."

"Indeed. But know this, Spock:" Sarek darted a black gaze across to his son: "I too have a strong will. There are some things I cannot, I will not do. I will not have a son in Starfleet. Apply your logic. I will not have a son in the Fleet; nor may I prevent you from joining the Fleet. Ergo, should you depart, I will call you my son no longer."

Something wrenched deeply inside Spock. He felt again the falling shadow as Sarek had moved to shield him from the _le-matya_'s attack. But his voice was perfectly even as he replied:

"Indeed. So be it."

And four days later, he allowed his mother to hug and kiss him, standing on the doorstop whilst the flitter waited on the driveway to take him to the spaceport.

And four days later, Sarek cha Skon watched from the window in silence.

Kai'idith.

-End-.


End file.
